AUBURN, Alabama -- Two or three days before the official start of Auburn's baseball practices, athletics director Jay Jacobs met with his new baseball coach, Sunny Golloway, to talk about a fire alarm.

As Golloway and Jacobs talked about the upcoming season in the home team's dugout, the rotation and the start of the season, the alarm blared from somewhere inside the locker room behind them, and a smile started to spread across Golloway's face.

That sound meant it was time for his team to start using their new space.

"We're real excited about what we've done so far," Golloway said. "It's 2014; everything is technology. Our guys look at that screen right behind you and they actually see their swings, they see the way they play, we can slow it down, we can break it down, we can analyze it, we can teach them an awful lot of stuff now with the new technology we have."

Auburn overhauled the locker room and training area underneath Plainsman Park, upgrading a space that had been cramped and out-dated into a wood-paneled open space fit for a major-league spring training facility.

In addition, the old weight room in the building adjacent to Plainsman Park was renovated into the coach's office and team meeting rooms, adding a bunch of technology into the room to help evaluate players.

"It's a great place where the team can come and hang out, and you don't mind being around each other, and being in there for a long time," closer Terrance Dedrick said. "It is a nice facility."

Golloway added a few more personal touches, including opening the bullpen underneath the monster of a wall in left field to allow the pitchers to see the game, adding season ticket-holder's names to their seats and trying to come up with any kind of other detail to shift, provided that it could get done for the start of the season.

Obviously, Golloway's focus is on turning around an Auburn baseball program that has struggled to make the NCAA Tournament in recent years, but he views the continued improvement of Plainsman Park as absolutely necessary to that goal.

Improving the facilities helps Golloway and his staff develop players, the coach believes.

"Unfortunately, college athletics is an arms race," Golloway said. "By the same token, it all comes down to player development. I want us to have the best player development facility and I would like for Major League Baseball scouts and high school coaches and people who influence young people to say: If you really want to get better, go to Auburn.

And he's got more plans to improve Plainsman Park once this season ends, although he's keeping those discussions between him and Jacobs for the time being.

"We had to make a decision on what we could do leading into this season," Golloway said. "You don't want to be under construction during the season for the fans and the athletes, of course. There's a lot more we want to do. We want to be a work in progress."